Lucky_Strike

I had to look twice at that - nice job! Reminds me of the Before and After books. Fella on the bike needs to look where he's going though. Great work, really bringing it to life - though not sure life is the right word given the devastation! Although the aerial view show how big the map is it's when you get down in the streets that we really see how much work you've put in to this. Fantastic! You should be proud bro!

Cool, thanks, will grab this so I can get started on those trees. Also where'd you get those funky tracers man! Finally, do any of the US Marines come with camo shirts to match their helmet covers?

Okay, so I can fix the jumping by relocating the handle to a spot which I can measure using Harry's very useful gridded grass - place the model where it should be before it jumps; find a nice handle spot on it where it intersects one of the 1m nodes; make a mental note of said spot; into Blender and move the origin to the new spot; test and tweak. No more jumping around. This is good to remember for future use. Yeah wasn't surprised to see them inside the tall wall enclosure. Tried fountains in there which did confuse them a bit, so will try other wall shapes and FO's to keep them out. Note to BF, how about a no go marker for the future, something that just tells the AI it can't put anything in a certain square, darn sight easier than all this faffing with ground tiles and hidden objects and using stuff where it was never intended. Without being able to enclose the area entirely there's a chance that the AI will use the cover provided so may just have to live with that. Or turn it into deep marsh or something like that ... No meta was applied to the sandbag wall, that's just the stock game fortification, purchased and placed, which is why I was surprised to see soft skins just drive on through. Turns out that the fortifications aren't so fortified ... The column is just the column still, but at the moment that's just the base model for the gate so only the original meta, that'll only affect the area around the origin/bounding box, rest of model won't receive any benefit from it. So in terms of obstruction to movement and LOS within the model there are: the ruined buildings at each side; tall walls in the central arches; the low wall at one end; flavor objects within the walled area; barbed wire obstacles on Tiergarten face. Overall it works quite well with pixeltruppen pretty much using the obvious routes through. Just the pointless sandbag wall that doesn't stop vehicles which I need to think about. Other options that could work but which might not give such an accurate historical playability: - There's room under the central arches for a modular building, three storey wrecked down to two storey, given a new skin to look like the large rubble filled barricades, these types ... Issues with this would be pixeltruppen occupying it - does that matter? These barricades weren't used as bunkers as such, but were meant as obstructions and impassable objects, they would have taken a lot of HE to get through and prevented tanks progressing. Might be able to use the large two storey barn - fill it with FOs to make the ground floor difficult to use, reskinned to look like a barricade. - Use actual bunkers. These will fit under the arches. Cloaked with FOs to look like the barricade. Again not barricades, but resilient enough and can't be completely destroyed like houses. FO would avoid the issue of ownership like we had with the chimney bunker I made. Okay the bunker would remain undetected until spotted but the FO skin would be there all the time, and importantly bunkers can be purchased ready destroyed, burning if wanted. I'm already thinking a wooden bunker might act as a better substitute for the sandbags wall anyway ... - So apart from the wooden bunker as substitute for the sandbag wall, foxholes might make a good stand in, Kubel unlikely to drive through those I hope! Dress them up to look more like this ... ... doesn't matter then if they're above ground, they will look the part and function. - which leads to a trench in place of the sandbag wall. Again doesn't matter they sit above ground if dressed to look like the position above. Functional, stops some vehicles and could look the part. Might be harder to place though since it will only occupy about one arch. Have I missed anything? Maybe a ditch? Simple rubble walls?

Yes, FOs are probably easier, but I'm thinking a combination since walls do offer better LOS blocking and hinder movement really well. FO's to fill the space behind wall should prevent some odd behaviour by pixeltruppen ... Just walls - of course they didn't align with the model and no flexibility to move them, but the model can move and in this instance it favoured me to move it a little ... ... as it actually improved the alignment with the front ruined houses. Note the barbed wire - that's as close as I was allowed to place it! So with walls, barbed wire and a sandbag position in place what do the boys think of it ... Given one movement order to run right through the middle this team went around their right side through the gap in the colonnade - nice Another team off around the opposite side even skirting the sandbags ... a little bit of running through columns but we're used to odd moments like that in CM What about vehicles I hear you all shout ...? Given a direct move order to go through the middle arch ... Didn't even change gear straight through a sandbag wall - WTF!? Okay so a Kubel is quite small maybe there's a gap ... What about something bigger ...? Barely even swerved to avoid the god damned middle of the fricking sandbags - absolute BULL - come on BF, how's this for a bit of abstraction - abstraction my f*cking arse! He's not even attempting to avoid the bags, didn't slow down, no bumping over them, no trail of debris, pointless ... even the pixeltruppen went around when they could have jumped over them. Pixeltruppen directed to the middle under the middle arch ... Yeah, we might lose a few in amongst the rubble, we'll see what the added FO's do ... Yeah maybe , I've positioned the origin/handle for ease of placing/clicking/repositioning the gate, it's a bit of a wiggle to get it into the space, and easy to accidentally click when doing other stuff. Earlier models had problems where I lost the handle point, so click to position was very difficult. I may also just try growing it by a metre see if that works. Well that's what is supposed to happen but here we have no other FOs in sight. We've all seen it before where the 'rule' just doesn't work for some unknown reason, had the same issue with FO columns there was one that just refused to stay in place despite all attempts to shuffle, replace etc. Not too many in a square or sitting on the same 1m node. Even tried with your grass grid so I could measure things more accurately, engine just wouldn't have it. Anyway I'm sure I can make this work a little better, afterall here are lots of places I can try its handle/origin

It's the life of a modder/mapper - but yeah, so far we're happy bunnies, and yes, the billboard looks great.

Haha. I've come up against it before with a few tree models. It appears in an error when export fails, something about 36000 x 2 +1 so around 72000 faces I guess. By modern standards that's nothing, but ... optimised engine anybody ... this year maybe ... or not. Anyway I know we can get this one well under that. My last rough decimate on it got the count down to about 60,000. Yeah , I'm gonna try a few things see what works best. Good thing is this is so big it can hide a lot inside the structure. Still only one FO at the moment so will be able to place another bits around it without issue I hope (assuming not too much jumping around of FOs). We'll still suffer vehicles and pixeltruppen sinking into the surfaces, but mostly I'm hoping we can keep them out. Worse case scenario we can place some proper hedgehogs across it to at least keep the tanks out ... Back to it ...

At the moment I'm not decided. If we use the right types of flavor objects (fountains) they'll works as barricades. If I build it into the model, then we'll need something inside to act as a barrier - tall walls, fountains again or similar. The problem with walls is they are locked more closely to the grid so I need to build the model around their positions to be useable. With FOs we have more flexibility but the objects offer less blocking of LOS etc. I'll experiment with both to see which I think will work best and still give you a working model that folks can't moan too much about, might end up as a combination for the best of both worlds. Progress is happening. Using the dimensions from your last map I have now fixed the size pretty much - don't change your map now There's an issue with the model jumping to one side by about a metre which is incredibly annoying. This hopefully won't be too noticeable once she's given a bit of a bombed make over. I have worked out which buildings can be placed internally and have started to figure out the texture mapping so that we don't just have the one texture ... ... the statue was easiest to separate and is wearing its own texture now. From this side you can see how it's all just off centre - notice the tram tracks. I'm going to alter the model slightly so that the buildings are inside the colonnade - means the model won't be as accurate but there's no other way to adjust for the grid and game's inability to lock FOs in place properly - bug, bug BF, BUUGG BF. Notice how the right guard house sits outside the colonnade ... ... same on left, just a bit less so. Once inside the colonnade I hope this will be less of an issue visually. Then we'll have useable buildings. I'm going to remove most of the roof from the wing, just leave the gable and roof platform. From the opposite side it doesn't look too bad already. Destroyed modular house amongst the columns will offer some potential combat positions. The roof will be gone here as well and some columns destroyed as per ref images, similarly with the other side. Before the barricades go in! Scale is not too bad - compare to this 1930's image ... Okay off to remake it for the fifth time .......

Yes, get a real sense of why kids armed with Panzerfaust were so dangerous and why casualty rates for the Russians were so horrendous. In some respects bombing the hell out of the place beforehand was not helpful to an assault, allies would probably have been better off just laying waste to it from air and with artillery whilst in the meantime wiping out the remnants of the Heer elsewhere. But uncle Joe had his heart set on sticking a flag on the Reichstag first, whilst the western allies were quite happy to let him sacrifice his people.

Does CW have flat roofs, not having a demo for that is a right pain. I guess, since there's no demo one could get it on Steam, then take advantage of their refund policy.

Hehe, everyone's gonna need upgraded GPUs by the time we finish. Seriously though, framerates is something I'm very aware of. Thus far the Gate is not too bad. It does stretch the size limits for a model, had to decimate the mesh to just get it within the faces limit of the game (or export script, not sure where it comes from). All that before I redo it AGAIN. Have to sort out the UV/texture issues and figure how we can combine all the various elements, whilst still making it playable ... LoL not much then ...

LOL, Yep overdid it a bit, but back in the saddle again ...

So what I propose is block the main arches in the centre with the high wall type barricades, and the right hand side (viewed from Tiergarten face) with a lower barricade) whilst putting in a sandbag emplacement at the left. This should then allow access through the left, though depends if you want vehicle/afv access? Not sure how sandbag emplacements are treated in the case of a tank, in RL they would probably be traversable at slow. Alternatively we could create a different type of barrier from the barbed wire, or a flavor object that gives some cover but doesn't hinder vehicles too much. We have options ... Interesting angle, really gives a sense of the scale of the gate. Lots of surfaces in the road, tram tracks with cobbles, pavement, tarmac, concrete, all sorts of stuff going on. It's the layer of scattered small detritus from tanks moving around and explosions that is what we could really use. And as Harry says a good dusting of human debris. awesome. I do think it's great how you've taken one of the weakest elements of CM - urban environments - and turned it on its head. Bodes well for other some of the other city battles. You got plenty of work for the future once you get this one out the door ...

Just afore I retire .... dawn creeps across Berlin ... ... or maybe we prefer a burning wreck to illuminate her ... All one texture at the moment - I hate UVs. Anyway At least it's possible to see this is why we need her!

Yeah we can get it in game, I already have but need to rescale it some more to fit the space better. I'm looking at the best way to 1. Wreck it some to look a bit more like the photos; 2. Make it work, that is not just be a flavor object. At the moment I'm thinking part real buildings part flavor objects.

Actually Nigel, looking at some of the photos of the gate around the end of the battle, it's quite clear that the archways were barricaded. The best photo I found so far is quite graphic so apologies for that ... The three central arches are blocked by what looks like substantial back-filled rubble behind sandbag or log? walls like we've seen elsewhere. Whilst the side pedestrian? archways are blocked with lower barricades, possibly combat positions? Looking at it from the opposite side it's clear that there were two or three tram or freight carriages used to further reinforce the central barricade ... ... 2 May 1945, and this ... ... apparently from 1 Jan 1945, though could be later. In the last image it's possible to just make out some people who are standing on the barricade in the central arch just beyond the freight carriage. So my question - would you like to go for barricaded and have the possible of a combat position? Modelling the barricades would likely entail some hacked buildings, which could be placed in the arches minus their roofs. Your tram and rail carriages/box cars would make a great addition with a burning wreck or two ...

Yeah, it makes no sense. One flat roof for the whole of the Eastern front is just lazy IMHO, especially as they already existed in CMFS2. There never seems to be any customer feedback survey or mechanism. I know it's been said on here before that BF look into all the bugs and stuff reported on the forums, but feedback should work two ways, it's all very well saying we're listening and we'll fix these issues as we see fit, but there's scant proof that the system actually works that well. It's more a case of just enough to get by. I appreciate they're a small team but with the extra exposure they are getting from Steam they are likely to get a lot more criticism and pressure than what they've experienced in the past and their usual advocates will be on increasingly shakey ground. But then again if the pro military contracts pay well and they don't demand the same kind of attention as the consumer side where's the incentive?

Yeah I had a play around with using a bridge. It's quite useful for blocking LOS and traffic movement through the arches, but it's rather limited when it comes to skinning it and I couldn't really get it tall enough without some serious terrain upheaval interfering with the surrounding buildings and colonnade. I might have another look at ways to partially block LOS, perhaps with a hidden single level building on each side of the central arch, though might only need to be a rubble building at that. This would also offer some cover to pixeltruppen hiding in the arches as well as allow them passage whilst vehicles could still pass through the central archway. Main thing is I think it's doable and will mostly function quite well. Haven't seen it yet as it's not out for MacOS yet - some problems with the delivery mechanism or something like that. Nigel is exclusively MacOS so he won't have it yet. I may grab the Windows version and install it on my PC just to peek in the files. But I thought there weren't that many things in the patch. The list of bug fixes was pretty short. You'll have to let us know what you find Harry.

That's a big improvement on the original BF version. Looking at the available independent buildings there are quite a few that I can't use as they are angled at 45 degrees The biggest barns are all angled, so that leaves me with less obvious choices. You said that you're not using "the Windmill and the Big Barns, or any of the shops and houses ..." Does this still stand? I've played around with the footprint of the gate as it stands on your map, and I might have a solution to the buildings on either side of the central arches. I'm thinking that simple modular or indi buildings surrounded by columns from the monuments flavour objects would give a pretty convincing colonnaded structure whilst the guard houses were pretty wrecked anyway. I can make several different wrecked column monuments that you can arrange around the houses ... ... obviously doing a better job than me. The buildings inside the colonnaded areas at the back (Tiergarten side) are completely raised to the ground just for rubble from the smashed roofs. The guard rooms are roofless. The columns can be placed quite neatly around the buildings and even inside if wished. If we have several heights of columns in varying states of destruction I think we are half way there. The central section could then be one very large flavor object placed over rows of columns, or similar, invisible flavor objects which work well for obstructing traffic, the only issue would be LOS through the central structure. One possible way around this might be to have the windmill made invisible, one either side of the central road. These would certainly restrict LOS but I'm not sure about how to limit access to them other than by using ground tiles. Otherwise there is the bridge if I can figure out how to mod that.

Hehe, a lot of our chatter is just us thinking out loud as we learn what we're able to do. Don't worry too much about x, y, z and meta for now, if we get it figured we'll share it on here for sure. I hope your baublesare getting polished ready for Christmas, must say I haven't even thought about Christmas yet! Glad to hear you found a PS to sort your bmps - now your Japanese helmets can really shine!

Hehe, I was going to post a screen grab of the block from the mastermap so you could see roughly where the chimney goes but I see you're one step ahead. I'll post this which is (inexplicably) the factory that was in use ... Ain't it cute ... don't get this, when they already had a better sized factory/chimney combo ... I do think the scale overall of a lot of the buildings on the Berlin master maps is just too small, lots of it looks too dinky like some small town rather than a capital city. What you're doing, in contrast, is light years ahead. It just feels so much more like a city in ruins. Great organisation and process, really shows in your maps. Almost a shame to destroy it, but I absolutely admire your determination to get this right. Course you know you're gonna have to tackle Cologne and Aachen amongst others, at some point Re the chimney height - I was going by the height of the buildings directly around it. Most are 4 or 5 storeys and it looked just over twice their height. Given the buildings are mostly large townhouse/apartment and office style I reckoned room height 2.5-3m so I got about 30m. A substantial chunk of the Reichstag was missing by 45, but comparing those images we have suggests the chimney height was below the top of the remaining dome by a few metres, which gives us a height of around 35-40m. The ones on the other side of the Spree look about the same so I wonder if they had some regulations regarding height. With both your aerial photo and the other contemporary photos I think you can situate the chimney in about the middle of that block. Shame the factory is at an angle, but like I said that's something we can't change at the moment. Do you think you can clip me a section of your latest map where you have the Brandenburg Gate so I can get the scale of it right to fit into your map. I'm considering making the model ready ruined, or at least roofless, as that'll probably be easier than trying to add all the extra textures for intact and ruined. Don't really know yet will have to see what I can do re the middle section.

I do wonder if BF do this on purpose just to annoy us! I also gotta question if they've ever been to Europe? Perhaps they came to the UK where we're fond of a bit of mock tudor ... Makes me I quite often end up nodding off in front of a tree model.

I thought the same thing this evening so I'll get back onto them once big chimney is done.

Thanks, probably at the weekend. And yes this one had quite a few textures Yes please come back @sbobovyc aka Obi-Wan Kenobi - you're our only hope he says in his best Princess Leia voice! Yes it must be in there somewhere. Trees at least all behave the same (nearly), and now I know most of their peculiarities I can wrangle them quite well. They're just a bit slow going when there's 300 objects to arrange !!!!

I did some research into the photo you showed where we could see a chimney near the Reichstag, found some more images that clearly show where it is ... This from 1928, before the Reichstag was wrecked, can clearly see the chimney top right, it's about 10 storeys tall or so. There's actually another just over the Spree, just out of shot here but nevertheless quite close. Still standing in 45, this from the opposite side ... And another even clearer ... I couldn't identify the building, there was gymnasium there somewhere ... Here is the rescaled chimney on a portion of the stock master map - it was kind of there but the scale was a little off The 'Reichstag' in the foreground .... ... and viewed from the other side. This section of the BF master map was not as full as it should be. Many of the buildings were too small with lots of mock tudor roof gables! It's clear in the photos that this is a dense city block of mostly 4 and 5 storey buildings, so I added a few to sort of give the impression, but it's stock houses I'm afraid. I think it's just off the edge of your Moltke Bridge map.

Sounds like a good plan , plus you can have them smouldering or just sulking. There are plenty of Panther marks that weren't used so it's a great use of them, plus you can always repurpose a later version model to something like a D if you want it to look like say a late G. Like the way it's sitting on it's suspension as well!